The Strong and the Weak
Can you be strong and weak at the same time?
In our culture, “personal strength” has been elevated above all other qualities—especially for girls. “She is strong,” equals the highest form of praise. Be bad, be sad, be a dork… be anything but weak.
But how do we define strength? What does strength mean to you? Resilience in the of face opposition? Fighting for your dreams? Insisting on your way? Courage… stubbornness… independence?
Cravings
Let’s say you wanted Chick-fil-a in the worst way, right now. You had no time, not much money, and everyone in your family would show up late to school and work by your actions. But you bore down all opposition. You fought hard for your deep fried dreams and stood the test. You were strong in the face of adversity. (I’ve never had Chick-fil-a but apparently it’s a cross between heroine and heaven.)
Our modern definition of strength is not so different from this. Strength has come to be defined merely as an expression of human will. Chesterton put it this way: “Ultimate authority is in will not in reason. Not why a man demands a thing but the fact that he does demand it.” Strength is seen only as raw, personal choice above all else: an insistence on my way, my plans, my individual expressions, my life choices, my dreams…
Shy Girl
Fanny Price is one of Jane Austen’s lesser known heroines. She shrunk from attention, hated large crowds, and loved being a wallflower. Fanny was shy, mousy and quiet. But that’s not all.
Because she had grown up impoverished and then got adopted by a wealthy, extended family, some of them, therefore, felt they had the right to boss her around as if she were a servant. Yet, she went along with it. She willingly did the bidding of those around her, submitting to often unreasonable demands. Her manners grew nervous and creep-mouse.
And if that’s not enough Fanny was also physically weak. She tired easily, and depended on others for basic health. It was as if Austen was going out of her way to show us what at first appears to be the weakest fictional character ever created.
Some might point out that Austen was simply cutting with grain for that time period. As if this was merely how women were considered and Austen felt she might as well stick at least one typical female in there to mollify the crowds. I do not agree with how women were treated or often represented at that time, but I promise you, that is not what is going on here. Fanny’s apparent weakness was just as offensive during Austen’s time as it is now.
Then, and now, Fanny’s character has been categorically stamped as “weak.” History has blushed at this heroine, almost universally regarding her a great, historic wimp. Especially when you line Fanny up against Austen’s other sparkling, spicy and vivacious female characters.
In spite of all of this, I want to make the case that Fanny Price might be the strongest character ever penned. The problem is with a skewed concept of what strength actually means—both then and now.
To round out Austen’s ruthless portrayal of Fanny’s many weaknesses, Jane introduces another female character Mary Crawford. Mary was constantly shown in stark comparison with Fanny in Austen’s novel, Mansfield Park. Mary was everything Fanny was not. She exploded off the pages in a vibrant, spirited show of strength. Boisterous, articulate, willful, lively, and humorous—Mary made an already timid Fanny Price in the shadows, that much more diminished.
One particularly poignant example of this, was when Mary first learned to ride a horse soon after her arrival on the scene. She took to it instinctively, showing endurance and physical prowess.
The coachman watching this, summed it up by remarking to Fanny that he, “has never seen such a natural horse woman (referring to Mary)… never seen anyone take to it so fearlessly and well. Not like you. You were a fearful timid creature. How you did tremble.”
When asked if horseback riding fatigued her Mary said, “nothing every fatigues but doing what I do not like.” This is perhaps the most important statement in the entire book.
We are finally now getting an insight into how Austen defines real strength of character. When Austen gave us Fanny Price as outlined above, she was going out of her way to show us that real inner strength is not found with any of those things.
According to Austen, when “human will,” and “personal strength,” are always synonymous, what you wind up with is, in fact, weakness… Because real strength is defined by a submission to something outside of yourself.
It is perhaps scandalous for me to toss out a character sketch of this seeming weakling, Fanny Price, tell you she is actually strong, and then leave it at that. Especially in our current, cultural climate. There is a whole lot that I don’t mean by it, and there is much more to say. But I’m going to leave you anyway. We don’t have time now, but coming up next, we’ll look in more detail about what biblical strength is and what it is not.
Strength and Weakness
For now, if you are offended by the thought that personal strength could ever look like Fanny Price… if your definition of strength must never submit to anyone else… than you might have a few issues with a character sketch of Jesus Christ.
He was an all powerful God who submitted to human weakness to the point of death on the cross. And that was the biggest show of strength human history has ever witnessed. As Christians, we should not look for strength on mainstream news, or in street rallies, or through individual expression. We should look to the cross.
The message of the cross is foolishness to the world “but the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25).